INVITATIONS – John Hejduk: “House for a Poet”
International Workshop as part of the Post-graduate Master Program “Arquitectura. Crítica y Proyecto”.
The idea of the “INVITATIONS” program was to approach an architect who has an interest in research parallel to their architectural practice. With their acceptance of this invitation to the workshop, the invited architect proposed a program to develop the workshop that would offer those instruments and materials for a determined and intentioned comprehension of their way of working. These workshops were completed by a brief series of lectures by people suggested by the invited architect themself.
In this edition, John Hejduk suggested building a fragment of one of his projects using the technique and materials that we considered more adequate and suitable. He chose a room from the Guardiola house (an unbuilt project by John Hejduk for Cádiz, Spain, in 1989), and suggested a new way to access this autonomous and elevated room that he, then, called “House for a Poet”. The piece, when isolated, is recognised as a part of his personal vocabulary of architecture, defined by a list of concepts, where each of them is related to a different black construction. The workshop started by building a general model of the Guardiola house at 1 to 25 scale. Afterwards, with the help of the modelling workshop from the school, the students were able to build the “House for a Poet” at 1 to 3 scale. As a final celebration, the piece was built on the Barcelona beach, remaining there for one day.
| Dates: | June 1999 |
| Location: | Escola Tècnica d’Arquitectura del Vallès, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. |
| Director of the Master: | Josep Quetglas, Ton Salvadó and Carles Muro. |
| Direction of the workshop: | John Hejduk, with Eva Prats and Ricardo Flores. |
| Participants: | Jordi Blanch, José Caldeira, Sofia Cassales, Luis Costa, Rodrigo Chauriye, Érica Checcucci, Federica Ferrari, Alberto Fonseca, Inecita Florez, Patricia Llosa, Esteban Luna, Joel Herrera, Ángel Padilla, Andrés Mendoza, Contessina Monterrubio, Rozana Montiel, César Moreira, Nicole Nossar, Christian Ricart, Marcela Rivera, Natalia Rodríguez, Duarte Saé Sousa, Pablo Saric, Bruno Serrao, Paula Tabari, Andrea Tissino, Linette Yanisselly. |
| Lectures during the workshop: | Jaume Avellaneda, Josep Quetglas, Xavier Monteys, Pedro Azara, Pep Duran, Maurici Pla, Sara Nadal, José María Torres Nadal, Robert Brufau. |
| Technical Advice: | Jaume Avellaneda, Professor of Construction at ETSAV. |
| Assistance for building the 1 to 3 scale House for a Poet: | Ángel García, Laura Baringo and Xavier Aragall, responsible for the modelling workshop at ETSAV. |
| Sponsors: | Nordic Timber Council (Flandes Pine timber for the House for a Poet); Sogem Ibérica (Zinc for the roof of the House). |